


Where the Heart Is

by Saucery



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Awkward Co-Parenting, Bisexuality, Drama, F/M, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Kid Fic, Loneliness, M/M, Multi, Pack Feels, Parenthood, Parents & Children, Pining, Polyamory, Romance, Sexual Content, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Unconventional Families, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:43:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Home.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [officerstilinskihale](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=officerstilinskihale).



* * *

 

It’s an old bruise that Derek knows better than to touch, the knowledge that he could’ve had Stiles, all those years ago, when Stiles wanted to be had. It’s a bruise of the heart, of the mind, a stain an entire decade hasn’t been able to wash out.

In that decade, Stiles has married and has had a daughter, a daughter with Stiles’s freckles and Lydia’s sharp tongue. And Lydia has become more herself with every passing year, healing from what Peter did to her, until it doesn’t even show up, nowadays, the fear-scent that had once clung to her more closely than any of her designer perfumes.

They’re happy together, the three of them. Complete. And it’s -

It’s Derek’s own weakness that makes his gaze still linger on Stiles, that makes him notice Stiles looking right back.

Derek has to be imagining it.

Stiles never bruised the way Derek did.

Did he?

 

* * *

 

“But Daddy, Derek’s scary,” says Joan, when Stiles has to go out-of-town for an awards ceremony (he’s been doing stellar work as Beacon Hills’ sheriff, apparently), and Lydia is already away on a conference.

Usually, Stiles asks Scott and Allison to look after Joan. Derek isn’t good with kids, and he’s sure the only reason he gets Joan even some of the time is because Stiles and Lydia pity him, in his solitude, all his erstwhile Betas having left to form packs of their own.

Is his loneliness that tangible? Does the air chill when he is near?

No, he’s being dramatic.

“I thought we talked about this, Joan.” Stiles crouches in front of his daughter, looking into her eyes seriously. “Derek’s like Remus Lupin. He gets scarier around full moons, but he’s a nice guy.”

Derek has to fight the urge to snort at the thought of being classified as a  _nice guy_.

“He isn’t a nice guy,” Joan says, sullenly, and Derek has to agree.

“I’m sorry about this, Derek,” Stiles says, getting up awkwardly, blushing as though Joan’s perfectly sensible responses are a result of bad parenting. They’re not. Joan’s just honest - and perceptive - and Derek likes that about her. He doesn’t have to bother catching her scent to tell if she’s lying. “She isn’t usually so - ”

“I  _am_  usually so,” Joan interjects, and Stiles sighs.

“She’s the one in control, clearly,” Stiles says, with a wry twist of his mouth. “Just like her mom.”

Derek just grunts, holding out a hand for Joan to grab onto.

Joan studies it, suspiciously, before gingerly sliding her hand into his.

“You can have the whole house to play in,” Derek says, grudgingly, and Joan brightens.

“Even the creepy attic?”

“Even the creepy attic.”

“Yay!”

 

* * *

 

Lydia’s the first to return, two days later, when she shows up to collect Joan. She smells warm, like motherhood and earthiness - and joy, as Joan runs into her open arms.

“Thanks for this,” Lydia says, still embracing her daughter. They don’t look alike, the two of them, other than their hair and their eyelashes, which are an identical shade of auburn. Every other feature of Joan’s is like Stiles’s. “We really appreciate it.”

“Uncle Derek’s fun!” Joan exclaims, then follows it with the necessary qualifier. “Sort of.”

“Oh?” Lydia raises her eyebrows, amused. “And what does ‘sort of’ mean?”

“It means I won’t let her eat ice-cream until she falls sick,” Derek answers, feeling defensive about disciplining someone else’s child.

But Lydia just chuckles. “Well done, then. Stiles always caves.”

“Daddy is the bestest,” says Joan.

Lydia laughs. “I bet he is. Thanks again, Derek.” She’s still carrying Joan, despite Joan being a bit too old for it.

“Don’t mention it.”  _Really. Don’t_. Neither of them talk about why Derek never turns down a favor Stiles asks of him - why he never has, and never will.

But Lydia’s not done with him. Before she goes, she clears her throat, and says: “You - you ought to come over for dinner. Sometime.”

“Sometime,” Derek echoes.

“This Saturday? Stiles should be back by then.”

A family dinner. She wants him to share in their - as though he -

“No,” says Derek, succinctly.

Lydia’s eyes shutter. “You should think about it,” she says, quietly. “We’ll set a place for you. You’re welcome anytime. You know you are.”

Derek doesn’t need to feel  _welcome_  in a home that isn’t his. “I’ll think about it,” he replies, just for the sake of being polite, just to get her the hell out of here more quickly.

She just looks at him, like she can see everything he’s thinking. Then again, she’s the genius, not him.

Derek watches her drive away from the Hale house. Taking that warm scent with her. Taking Joan.

 

* * *

 

He goes over for dinner on Saturday. And the next Saturday. And the next.

He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because he likes to torment himself, seeing Stiles flushing with a sip of after-dinner wine, once Joan’s been put to sleep. Maybe it’s because he sees Stiles kissing, sometimes, kissing his wife fondly, once or twice, their mouths lingering just out of the corner of Derek’s vision, before Lydia reappears with boxes of food for Derek to take home with him.

“You’re single,” Lydia says, when Derek objects. “Shut up and take the free food.”

Something’s changing, though, and Derek doesn’t know what it is. Joan’s left over at his place more and more often, when Stiles and Lydia need a babysitter, and Joan seems to find him more and more acceptable, even going so far as to get into a fight over him at school, when someone calls him ‘weird’. (Why that’s something to fight over, Derek can’t fathom; it’s the truth.)

Whatever’s changing has Lydia touching him, more often - a hand at his shoulder, at his elbow, her fingers brushing his as she takes his plate from him. It has Stiles watching, his eyes strangely hooded, strangely hungry.

It has Stiles hugging him, sometimes, before Derek goes home.

Derek doesn’t want to think about it. He’s not sure he  _can_. He doesn’t even have the words for what’s happening, except for the hot, curling realization that it is.

He tries not to feel starved for touch, when he isn’t visiting them. Tries not to feel isolated when he’s having dinner in his own goddamn home, accompanied only by the ticking of a clock.

Tries not to jerk off to the memory of those glancing touches, Lydia’s slender fingers, Stiles’s wine-sweet breath.

They’re not his to have.

His pack is gone. He isn’t going to get another.

It’s time he got used to it.

 

* * *

 

It’s an old bruise, what he still wants from Stiles, but it isn’t as old or as vicious as the wound Kate left on him.

The world seems to be conspiring against him, to make the day of the fire a Saturday, this year. To make it -

\- so that he isn’t alone.

But he is, isn’t he? Neither of them  _know_. Stiles and Lydia, they don’t - they  _can’t_  -

The dinner passes normally, with Joan whining about going to sleep too early, and being packed off to bed, nonetheless. She scowls all the way up the stairs and looks (for some reason) at Derek, as if, by virtue of being the not-nice guy, he’s an outlaw, and should be supporting her in breaking the rules.

No such luck, though.

Once she’s abed and the dishes have been cleared, with Derek helping out at the sink, like always, Stiles comes up to him, right behind him, and says: “Hey.”

Derek knows that tone of voice - all careful, tired grief, the same tone Stiles gets when he talks about his parents.

So Stiles remembers, after all.

“You aren’t going back, today,” Stiles says.

“And where else will I go?” Derek asks, sarcastically.

“Nowhere. You’re staying here.”

“Where?” Derek sneers. And then, before he can help it: “In your bed?”

Stiles just stares at him. And then, Lydia enters the kitchen, with more plates stacked on one arm, and says: “Yes.” Just like that. Matter-of-fact. Definite.

 _You’re both mad_ , Derek doesn’t say. His blood is suddenly pounding in his temples. He feels dizzy, like he’s been struck by vertigo, when Lydia reaches past him to turn off the tap, and takes his wet hands in hers.

“Come on,” she says, and pulls him gently away from the sink.

Toward the bedroom.

Are they -

They can’t be serious.  


But they are, they absolutely are, and Derek lets himself be led, like a sleepwalker, as Stiles follows, taking off his shirt along the way.

His torso is long and pale. Lightly muscled. Perfect. He’s -

So  _close_ , so -

“Get in,” Lydia all but commands, pushing Derek onto the bed, and climbing in, after. She curls by his side, a line of softness against him, the plushness of her clothed breasts pressing against his arm. “Hush,” she says, as though he’s said something. “It’s okay.”

It’s not. It can’t be.

And yet, Stiles sheds everything else he’s wearing, until he’s naked, hard, the dim light of their bedside lamp illuminating him like a soft-edged flame, flickering with shadows. He climbs onto the mattress.

Derek isn’t holding his breath by the time Stiles kisses him. But it’s a near thing.

“Wait,” Stiles says to him, after Derek hauls him close, kisses him harder, flips them over until Derek’s on top. Lydia is still watching them, eyes dark and low-lit. “Lydia - ”

“No, it’s just you two, right now. I’ll join in later.”

 _Later_. Derek wants her now. Except that he doesn’t. Or rather, what he needs is Stiles, and what he wants is beside the point. He needs to be inside Stiles, needs to be holding him down and fucking him, having him, so that’s what he does, with Stiles twisting and writhing beneath him as Derek works him open, fingers slippery with the lube Lydia uncapped for them.

And it’s only when he’s in Stiles that Lydia kisses him, her mouth bruised from where she’s been biting her lower lip, and Derek wants to know, desperately, if it’s because she’s unhappy, or because she wants this, or because -

He can’t think. Can’t think anymore, not with the close, clasping heat of Stiles around him, Stiles’s legs around his waist, Stiles’s ankles crossed behind his back as Derek thrusts and thrusts and  _thrusts_. 

Eventually, the rutting slows, turns into a dreamy, languorous thing, with the both of them sweat-slick and sliding over each other, against and into each other, wicked, sloppy kisses and a strange, aching hurt, because the old bruise of want within Derek is flaring up again, sharp and jagged and beautiful, making his fists clench in the sheets on either side of Stiles’s head, making him watch Stiles’s eyes shiver closed and his lips part on a gasp -

And that’s when Lydia joins them completely, as if she knows she’s needed, now, to put them back together again, to hold them together. Her palm, when it curves around the back of Derek’s neck and urges him into another kiss, is certain, and when she climbs astride Stiles, moaning as he eats her out, she’s stunning, her nipples hardening under the callused flicking of Derek’s thumbs.

Derek needs to leave his scent all over them. Mark them - make them part of his pack, part of -

So he does, again and again, over the course of that night - until the three of them collapse with exhaustion, tangled in each other’s arms, damp and loose-limbed and wrung out.

“I told you this would be a great idea,” Lydia mumurs into Stiles’s ear, sleepily, and Stiles hums.

“You have the best ideas,” Stiles affirms, and tightens his hold on Derek’s waist when Derek makes as if to leave the bed. “Sleep. Here,” Stiles orders, with a drowsy sternness, before dropping off into sleep, himself.

“Useless,” Lydia says, affectionately, twining a hand around Derek’s. “Like you. Another one to look after, then.”

Derek doesn’t disagree with her. Either about being useless, or about needing looking after.

Perhaps, the next morning, he’ll drop Joan off at school. Perhaps, the next night, he’ll have this again.

Perhaps he can have this, now - have a pack, a family, and have it work out.

Perhaps.

“Stop thinking,” Lydia yawns. “I c’n hear you.”

Derek stops thinking.

Stiles starts snoring.

They sleep.

 

* * *

  **fin.**  


**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Check out [my blog](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
